Of Titans, Magic, and a Man Who Had to Live Again
by light on the road
Summary: In which Harry Potter, ex-Boy-Who-Lived and current Auror, finds himself in a distant, disconcerting new world: he's lived the past few years blissfully free of war's torturous grasp, but now he accidentally stumbles into the thick of Mankind's grapple against the Titans, and is forced to fight for humanity – yet again.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: As much as I wish I could, I cannot claim to own any of the Harry Potter or Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin franchise.**

 **Notes: I will probably be continuing this piece (hurrah), and chapters will probably be edited occasionally for minor language errors, should I find them . Do review - it boosts my self-esteem, and a little more self-esteem never hurt anybody. :)**

Harry was considerably disoriented. He was absolutely confident that several moments before, he was in the Chamber of Secrets, looking upon its creepily familiar corridors - they had remained eerily unchanged despite the movements of the War and the accumulation of years - yet he had the unmistakable feeling of just waking up. He sat up, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight. His pulse was still racing unnaturally, and feeling a sudden wave of nausea, Harry rolled over and threw up. When he was done, and his stomach was feeling somewhat less queasy, Harry wiped his mouth brusquely and adjusted his glasses, peering around cautiously.

He was on a field, an open, sunlit field – how strange. It was unnaturally peaceful and quiet, and the grass undulated in the soft breeze. There was a town in the far distance, crowded along the edges of a huge wall that appeared to defy all rational proportions.

The wall was absolutely _massive_ , and stretched around Harry for as far as he could see. Tufts of wildflowers sprouted amongst the large expanse of grass, and the sight of several indistinguishable birds flying overhead momentarily distracted him. Harry scrambled onto his feet.

He was struck by the thought that perhaps he was dead, and this was the afterlife. A lump formed in his throat as his mind automatically flashed to his parents, and Sirius, and Lupin… He could have spent a lot more time dwelling on them and lost in memory, but Harry forced himself to rationalise: as hard as he tried, he simply could not remember anybody cast the Killing curse at him, or if he had fallen and conveniently stabbed himself. The last thing he remembered was excitedly setting foot into a discrete, undiscovered room, full of Tom Riddle's old paraphernalia. His scar had suddenly flared up and forced him to his knees, waiting for the waves of pain to pass…

He realised he was garbed in merely his jeans and a shirt, which was odd - then he remembered: he had taken off his robes while still in the fits of pain, for he had felt unbearably warm. He took his wand out of his pocket, momentarily reassured by its familiar weight and texture, and looked around again, squinting against the sunlight. In the far distance, he spotted two small figures jump up from under the shade of a lone tree. They appeared to be children, and they were carrying large packs nearly half their size. They were dressed in very simple garb, as far as Harry could see, and one of them, a girl with long black hair, had a red scarf twined around her neck.

Harry called out to them, but they seemed not to have heard, for they turned their backs on him and started walking in the direction of the town.

Harry watched the two figures steadily get smaller and smaller, until they vanished between the first few buildings.

More confused than ever, Harry decided to follow them. They looked harmless enough, if young, and perhaps he could receive some answers from the people in the town. The walk there was relaxing and quiet, but eerily so. The breeze tickled against his scar.

The town looked old, and seemed to constructed out of a combination of wood, brick, and stone. Harry found himself facing a wide, open corridor, flanked by numerous small market stalls. A fishmonger burst out in boisterous laughter by his left as he swung a cleaver down on an unsuspecting fish, disassembled and packed it it with a few quick movements, and handed it to a lady. The market street felt like a less prosperous, less magical version of Diagon Alley; Villagers stood before their array of vegetables, meat and fish, and called at Harry in beckoning voices, but he walked straight ahead, hand clenched firmly around his wand in his pocket. Some of the people looked at him weirdly, and his attire did admittedly stand out - none of these people appeared to have ever seen or heard of jeans before. He detoured through several alleys at a quick pace, until he stumbled upon a pair of middle-aged women chatting animatedly while hanging their laundry. They seemed to be normal, unsuspecting muggles like the rest of the town - although, of course, everyone seemed to have been dragged back a few centuries in time.

"E-Excuse me," He cleared his throat.

The women turned to look at him. One of them looked him up and down distastefully, and _harrumph_ -ed. She returned to flinging out a sheet with excessive force. The other woman offered an exasperated, but warm smile, and said, "Yes?" Her voice was weak and wandering.

Harry decided that the best course of action would be to find his bearings, then figure from hence. He had to return to Wizarding Britain. He thought of his friends - _Hermione, Ron, Neville, Luna_. And Ginny, whom he had left that morning with nary a peck on the cheek and a cheery "See you tonight!", smiling as he gently placed a hand on her very swollen belly before leaving out the door.

"Where am I?" He asked.

She cast him an incredulous look. "Why, my son, you're in Shiganshina District, of course." She paused, then asked, "Are you alright, dear?"

"I… I'm not very sure." _Shiganshina District?_

The other lady pinned up her last sheet on the clothesline with unnecessary vigour, then gathered her laundry baskets under each arm and hustled off, vanishing behind a door with a loud slam.

"Oh, don't mind her. She's always been wary of strangers, ever since her husband was taken away and put into the Scouting Legion… Oh, he died in the first mission, and she's never really gotten over it, the poor girl. Now, I hope her son isn't forced to join the army too, that darling boy, he's still so young…" The woman continued to drone on in her weak, wandering way, and Harry found his attention drifting. Finally, he cut in and thanked her, then hurried off, eager to get away.

In his rush, he accidentally bumped very hard into somebody, knocking the man to the ground and winding his own self in the process. The man grunted in protest, collapsing in a rather undignified fashion. Harry started to apologise, holding a hand out to help him up, but the man ignored his proffered hand and shot him a particularly dirty look. He stood up and… towered over Harry.

Rather expected, by now.

"What do you think you're doing, runt?" He sized Harry up. Harry groaned internally. The man was garbed in some elaborate uniform, with straps running all around his body and an emblem of two intertwined roses on his shoulder. He was some sort of soldier, no doubt.

"Don't you know you can be prosecuted for assaulting a soldier?" He slurred, confirming Harry's suspicions. Harry looked closer at him. His face had a sheen of red to it - he had been drinking. All the better. "Kid, you're in _big_ trouble... Come with me, I'll take you…" He clamped a hand down on Harry's shoulder.

This was his cue to turn around and hightail it out of there, so Harry did as instinct called. Besides, Harry was fully aware of his diminutive size, thank you very much, and was rather offended at being called a kid. He mumbled a quick _locomotor mortis_ and took a second to appreciate the look of confusion on the man's face, before he turned around and sprinted off again, hearing the telltale ' _thump_ ' of a body crashing onto the cobblestones behind him, followed by colourful swearing. Harry took special care not to bump into people this time.

In the distance, a bell tolled loudly, the clangs reverberating around the town. Harry heard indistinct yells of excitement, and wondered what had happened.

He burst out from the side alley. People were lined up along the edges of a street, watching intently and buzzing with barely restrained excitement. Harry caught glimpses of men - or soldiers again, probably - garbed in dark green cloaks and sporting various injuries and bloodied bandages, some on foot, some on horses. They had a depressed air to them, and the entire parade was a slow and sombre procession.

The man beside Harry murmured, "There's so few of them this time,"

Curious, Harry blurted out, "This time?"

The man looked at him. His face was haggard and lean, and he had a thin, wilting moustache beneath his hooked nose. He breathed into Harry's face, and Harry tried his utmost not to cringe at his musty, sour-ish breath. "The Survey Corps were badly hit this mission, kid. The Titans must have took them by surprise."

"Titans?" Harry graciously ignored being called a kid again.

The man shot him a very weirded-out, curious look, and said, rather apprehensively, "What about them?"

Harry was going to ask what they were, but a loud voice suddenly echoed over the crowd. A woman had thrown herself in front of the parade and stopped it in its tracks - she was frantic, and anxiously pleading to a soldier.

"My son, Moses… I can't find him." Her eyes brimmed with tears. "Where is my son?"

The entire parade stopped and remained still and silent, save for her continuous pleads.

Quietly, another soldier came forth and presented her with a small wrapped package. She stared, dumbfounded at it, and slowly started to unwrap it. From his position, Harry couldn't see what was in it, but the woman promptly burst out crying, her body wracked with shudders.

Harry hardly caught the soldier's next words, "... only part we could salvage."

Despite his confusion, he was suddenly struck with the solemnity of the moment. _Was there an ongoing war?_ Harry swallowed thickly - a slew of memories ran through his mind, but he pushed them away.

The aged woman stood there for a few moments, then crashed to her knees, as if giving up. She hugged the package to her frail body. The villagers and soldiers watched silently, each one experiencing their own mixture of shock and pity. She raised her tear-stained face and softly asked the man, who then knelt before her.

"But... my son… was useful, right? He might… not have been a hero, but he at least died helping mankind fight back, right?" Her voice rose with every word, until she shouted the last part, her voice cracking with emotion.

She was full of desperate hope, and Harry found himself wishing that the reply would be affirming.

A dry breeze wafted through the street, taking with it small puffs of dust. Another tense moment of silence.

The soldier mumbled something, then his back stiffened, and he said, "No… Even this mission - No, even after all the missions, we… We still haven't made any progress." His tone turned self-deprecating, and he started to rant. "I'm a failure! All I've done is gotten soldiers killed left and right! And we haven't learnt anything useful about the Titans!"

Titans again. Harry sorely wished he wasn't alone. Hermione would have this figured out in seconds. And a war of some sort was undeniable, now. Harry wasn't sure he could face another war so soon - it had barely been half a decade, but he was still tortured by the all the death that the Wizarding War had brought.

The woman hugged the bundle to her even harder, but she seemed reserved, except for the tears still flowing freely and the occasional shudder. She got to her feet. "Moses… Moses…" She mumbled, as she turned around and left without saying anything else, her eyes blank. The people parted quietly to let her through, and she vanished from view, leaving the air heavy.

Without word, the procession continued, and the soldiers left.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: Made minor (really, very minor) edits on the previous chapter over the course of the week. In this chapter, I may have accidentally gotten carried away, so quite a lot goes down, but I hope you enjoy the extra material :) Leave a review!**

The crowd dissipated soon after, but not before Harry heard some disparaging remarks about the uselessness of the soldiers. Evidently, some people disagreed, as a scuffle nearly broke out some distance away, but Harry took special care to stay out of it, sidling away discretely.

From there, Harry wandered aimlessly, keeping to himself in the shadows. The sun made its path across the sky as he was buried deep in thought. Had Tom Riddle set up some kind of portkey in the room that whisked him away to this place? But even then, why did his scar hurt so much? And portkeys didn't feel like that at all - he usually arrived standing and awake. Besides, this place seemed ridiculously outdated and non-magical. Even regular muggles had their cars and lights and refrigerators, and put their groceries in plastic bags - he had seen none of that here. And _Titans_. What in Merlin's pants was a _Titan_? And why did the people have such a fearful air to them when talking about them? They really rather sounded like one of the trains that ran in the muggle subway.

Harry was still confounded by it all, and actually... a little bit hungry. Yes, he might have just recently thrown up the butterbeer and remnants of Molly's dinner from the previous night, but over the years, Harry had learnt a lot about the art of the iron stomach and rebounding from digestive issues from The Prodigious Eater, Ron. Harry never thought well on an empty stomach, and while he was sure galleons would be universally accepted as payment considering it was, after all, gold, he hadn't actually brought any money with him.

He started to speculate what kind of food the people here ate (they seemed like they were the kind to eat a lot of bland bread and potatoes), and wondered, regardless, if any kind old lady would spare him some if he begged hard enough, but Harry stopped himself. The most pressing matter now, besides finding food, was-

A deafening crack resounded.

For a brief moment, Harry saw his shadow flicker on the dirt ground, cast by a bright flash of light behind him. He whipped his head around, hand automatically reaching towards his wand. Yells erupted from nearby as people ran, curious, towards the source of the noise.

"It came from outside the wall!" A child nearby shouted back towards at his friends as they ran past him in a horde of small pattering feet.

At that moment, a loud boom shook the entire town, throwing Harry to the ground. More screams rent the air.

Suspiciously, he leaned around the corner of a building.

And stopped. His eyes went wide, and he could swear his heart stopped for a few moments.

Several large, oblong red boulders had perched themselves precariously on the top of the wall. They were so insanely large and heavy, they crushed the stone underneath and dislodged bits of rubble that tumbled down onto the town below.

Before he could even question how the boulders had gotten there out of nowhere, the children from earlier screeched again, a few houses away.

The sun was suddenly blocked out. A massive shape was rising from beyond the wall. As it rose, it revealed - _a face_?

Harry was struck, horrified. This had to be some sort of deathly apparition - it was beyond inhumanly large and absolutely terrifying to look at - it peered over the wall with cruel eyes, its face completely raw and skinless, exposing the muscle and tendon underneath. The boulders beside its face - no, Harry could see now that they were its fingers, so unnaturally huge and similarly skinless that they _looked_ like gigantic red boulders - they clenched suddenly, decimating the stone underneath as easily as Harry could have crumbled a lump of soil. The rubble, now with larger, craggy pieces of rock, rained down on the buildings lumped near the wall.

He heard more people scream, but he could only stare up at the face in awestruck horror.

And then he couldn't hear the screams anymore, for another humongous boom threw him to the ground, where he landed heavily. He felt _things_ peppering his body, some stinging a bit, and when he opened his eyes, he realised they were pieces of stone debris. Harry staggered to his feet, brandishing his wand.

Loud crashes resounded in the distance, and when he peered around the corner yet again, he saw wisps of smoke rising from various roofs that now sported large holes, if the entire building hadn't already been smashed off its foundation by flying debris.

An immense foot protruded from the stone wall that had previously seemed so impenetrable. Harry watched in horror as it retracted, leaving a gaping hole, absolutely massive, edged by crumbling rock and splintered wood from what was left of the gate.

A young girl ran past him, bawling. An aged man shuffled after, but he seemed as if he had gone into shock. Harry could hear him muttering to himself, "It has happened. It has finally happened... Mankind is done for." Harry ran up to him.

"Sir!" Harry said.

The man stared blankly at him. "We are going to die. Mankind is done for."

"Sir, I need you to tell me what is going on," Harry said urgently, not bothering to hide his wand.

The man still stared at him, but there was a strangeness in his eyes; They were muted, without life. Harry realised he was blind. The man mumbled, "The Titans have finally breached the wall. The first time in a hundred years. Mankind is done for." Desperately, Harry tried to glean more information from him, but to no avail, so he let the old man shuffle off, still muttering about calamity and death.

Harry could feel thuds reverberating through the ground. The monotonous booms shook his bones, and he could feel his heart speeding up, the thuds seeming to force it to follow its constrictive, ominous rhythm. More people scrambled past him, screaming and yelling names.

And then he saw it.

It was undeniably a Titan. Harry didn't need to be told, he could see it, see the fear it had caused.

But really, nobody had informed him that a Titan was a giant naked man with no visible privates.

In any other circumstances, Harry would probably have burst out laughing, but the fact that a huge naked man, larger than a dragon, larger than Grawp, larger even than a Giant, had sparked such a strong response… It instilled a cold fear in him and drained his face of color. The Titan opened its mouth and groaned. The sound bounced around in Harry's brain - it sounded like a toll of death.

He watched as the Titan leaned down, scooped up a screaming, struggling person and casually tossed him in its mouth. The Titan bit down without reservation, and red trickled out of the corner of its mouth. It showed no remorse or hesitation whatsoever, but Harry heard a keening cry not too far away. " _Mom!_ "

Disgusted, he turned and dry heaved, leaning heavily against a wall. This was… This was insanity. The Titan's inhumanity rivalled that of the Death Eaters - while they preferred to play with their victims before killing them, the way the Titan quickly ended the life of a living, breathing human without being ruffled in any visible manner was even more bone-chilling.

The Titan swallowed, then spotted Harry. It lumbered towards him, kicking apart houses with uncaring ease. It groaned again.

Harry dodged a piece of roof and ran without a second thought. He weaved in and out of narrow streets, trying to shake off the Titan, but it seemed bent on getting to Harry, and pursued him with heavy steps and the occasional kick that razed another building to the ground and narrowed the distance to him.

Heart palpitating and lungs burning, Harry took random turns - _left, right, left, straight on, right, le_ -

A dead end. Harry skidded metres from the blank stone wall and tried to recover himself, but a massive, fleshy foot slammed itself in front of the corridor, blocking his only escape. A face peered around the corner, its nostrils seemingly big enough to fit Harry's entirety through. Harry was momentarily stunned by the creature's eyes - it was ridiculously human-like, though they were a harsh bright, empty black.

Whether it was out of debilitating fear, being an Auror, or natural Gryffindor bravery, Harry shakily raised his wand. If he was fast enough, he could maybe cast something to distract the Titan and make his escape…

The Titan moved suddenly, and Harry's heart lurched as its hand shot towards him. Instinctively, he yelled, " _Protego_!" The giant palm stopped in its tracks a foot from his head. The hand retracted, and Harry found himself staring back into the Titan's blank, unfeeling eyes. There were several moments of silence, pregnant with tension.

Without warning, the hand shot out again. Harry prepared to cast another Protego, but the hand swerved and went under him, scooping him up in one swift motion.

The fingers, each one as thick as his entire body, closed around him. Harry struggled and managed to get his arms free, but struggling was essentially useless, as the Titan slowly brought Harry towards his huge, gaping cavern of a mouth.

He panicked a bit.

" _Sectumsempra_!" The spell flew from his lips as he automatically slashed with his wand. Massive gashes suddenly appeared on the Titan's fingers, and its blood steamed vigorously as it met the air. The Titan itself seemed completely unperturbed by the wound, but he had severed enough of the tendon and muscle for its grip to loosen by degrees.

From his precarious perch on the Titan's palm, he looked around wildly. He was too high above the ground to make a safe landing… Spotting a roof, maybe a ten foot drop away, Harry swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. There was no better option, so he pried the Titan's limp fingers apart and took the leap.

He hit the roof hard, dislodging several shingles that clattered and broke as it fell onto the stone ground below. Ignoring the protest that his ankle gave, he scrambled up the roof. He slid down the other side, jumped off and landed on the ground, and promptly started running.

Harry expected the Titan to pursue him again, but when he risked a glance back, the Titan was still standing frozen, staring at its lacerated fingers as the wound steamed.

After a few minutes or so, his speed slowed to a half-jog, more aware of the burning in his ankle now that the adrenaline had subsided. Every thud that reverberated through the ground sent him hugging the shadows along the side of the streets again, waiting until the thuds seemed to travel further away before he continued. The occasional person would run past him, some sobbing and others sporting injuries of various extents - they all seemed to be headed the same way, so Harry hobbled after them. As he limped, the Titan's blood from earlier that soaked his skin, shirt and jeans started to steam, and the stains slowly faded away.

Finally, after Harry made one last right turn, he emerged onto a dock or pier of some sort. It was a crazy, chaotic, noisy mess. It reminded him of Platform 9¾ - except with twice the people and half the space. The people were shouting and clamoring, all trying to get into the queue to squeeze onto a wooden ship that was clearly too small to house all of them. Soldiers, dressed like the one Harry had _locomotor mortis_ -ed earlier, were trying to maintain some semblance of order, but their bellowed orders were barely discernible over the ruckus. The soldiers lined up at the edge of the dock, trying to stem the flow of people into the ship, but some still managed to squeeze through. Combined with Harry's earlier impression of them, they really didn't seem particularly competent at their job.

The ship was already nearly full of people, and most of them looked on toward the clamoring crowd morosely, though some were screaming and calling out towards their friends and family that hadn't made it onto the ship yet.

In the distance, several ships had already left, slowly trundling down the meagre riverway towards a giant metal-and-wood gate embedded in the far end of the stone wall, and presumably towards safety. This ship appeared to be the last one left.

Harry limped into the crowd - or more aptly put, the crowd swallowed him into the mess of aggressive jostling and indignant yelling. "Please! Take my baby!" A woman next to him accidentally jabbed her elbow into his ribs, hard, while frantically gesticulating with one arm and clutching her swaddled, bawling baby in the other.

Winded, Harry clutched at his side and let himself be pushed away from the woman by the movements of the crowd. He ducked his head as an overweight man spewed profanities over him, cursing the soldiers with a loud bellow. Spotting a momentary opening, he squeezed himself between two women, and found himself at the front of the crowd. A soldier waved his arms in front of Harry and yelled, voice hoarse, "Line up! We will get you all in, but let the injured, children and women in first! You have to be patient-"

His voice was drowned out by an overwhelming stream of protests. A high, reedy voice squeaked from somewhere within the throng. "We're going to get eaten by Titans before we even get on then!" A roar of agreement rose in reply.

The soldier's sharp jawline tensed, and his face looked hopeless, but he stayed his position. He spotted Harry trying to hobble out of the way of a middle aged woman who was hefting a massive pack of dubious materials and forging her way through the crowd with vigour.

"Are you hurt?" He asked, casting a look at Harry's ankle, which wobbled dangerously as he put weight on it.

Harry was going to say "A little bit, nothing to worry about" but the soldier got distracted by something in the distance, and the color promptly disappeared from his sweaty face. Harry followed his gaze, an ominous tugging in his gut.

A Titan was slowly drawing nearer, its features frozen into something that resembled an unwavering grin, eyes transfixed on the dock.

The soldier turned back to the ship and yelled, "Titans! Leave now! Now!" He ran towards the wooden gangplank, and tried to slide himself into the queue of people.

With a slow groan and accompanying creaks, the ship started moving. Those on the gangplank scrambled up into the ship as the wood splintered with the ship's movements and fell into the water below. The crowd rose into a panicked frenzy at being left behind, and Harry was swept into their air of fear and chaos - He suddenly found himself, too, yelling at the ship to stop, to wait for him. Certainly it wasn't completely full? They could definitely squeeze a few more in-

Desperate, he pushed aside a blonde soldier and stepped to the edge of the dock. With an indignant "Hey!", the soldier tried to grab his arm and pull him back, but he shook it off. His legs tensed. The edge of the ship was still in reach, but would his ankle allow him such a giant leap?

He cast a glance back at the Titan. Now even closer, its smile was even more terrifying - Yes. His ankle would allow him a leap.

Harry inhaled deeply and jumped, panic pumping through his veins, fingers reaching forward.

There was a second of heart-stopping silence while he was airborne, then he landed with a solid thump against the edge of the ship, clutching at the railing as his heart pounded. Hands reached forward and grasped at his shirt and arms, pulling him onto the ship. Gasping, he rolled over the top of the railing and landed on the floor. The same hands pulled him to his feet, where he stood shakily. He gratefully mumbled thanks to nobody in particular as he automatically reached up and adjusted his glasses.

After Harry's successful act of desperate bravado, the rest of the crowd still stuck on the dock tried to follow suit, but the ship was drawing too far away. Harry kneeled on the wooden bench and threw his hand over the railing to reach for a man who had just taken the leap - but his fingers barely brushed the other's, and with a high-pitched scream, the man fell into the water below. Stunned, Harry could only watch the murky water ripple with the man's last-ditch efforts to survive.

Why didn't he reach farther? He was so close, _so close_ … Guilt washed over Harry, rendering him incapable of movement apart from staring dumbly at the slowly receding pool of ripples.

"It's no use anymore," A soft, childish voice whispered from beside Harry. Disproportionately strong hands pulled his frozen body down to sit on the bench. Harry turned to look at the source of the voice - it was a young girl, maybe eight or nine, which was somewhat startling. A crimson scarf was twined around her neck, and her face was half buried in it, shadowed by a curtain of black hair. She didn't look back at Harry, drawing her knees up onto the seat and hugging them, eyes closed. Beside her, a young, brown-haired boy sobbed loudly, calling for his mother.

There was something familiar about her, but the guilt that still inundated him refused to oblige his recognition. Harry turned mutely to face the front, where masses of bodies packed every nook of the ship, all swaying involuntarily with the ship's every movement. Overwhelmed, he leant back onto the hard railing, as the pain crept back into his ankle and his eyes felt pricks that warned of something he didn't want to acknowledge.

War.

Harry closed his eyes as well.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: Hey guys! I'm really heartened to see the reception of this story so far - thanks for the support, it's really encouraging! Also, my finals are nearing... Which explains the unnatural gap in posting time (sorry, hahaha). And _also_ , by some twist of fate, I managed to wreck my laptop screen, which just makes things more inconvenient until I get it fixed. :( Regardless, I'll still be writing, don't worry. I hope you enjoy this chapter (I made it _slightly_ longer as penance for waiting time)!**

When Harry opened his eyes again, he felt a sense of innate peace - or rather, a solid emptiness that was oddly reassuring. The threat of tears were gone, though he had spent a good amount of time fighting back the slew of memories, tumultuous emotions, and haunting images of death and pain that had resurfaced from some dark, scarred part of himself. Several years of Auror discipline had helped him, somewhat, in maintaining control over the seventeen-year-old in him that was still raw and bloody from the war.

He absentmindedly fingered the familiar crevices and ridges of his wand as the ship continued to sway. It provided a little bit of comfort, and a dull ache for the warmth that was Ginny's embrace and the familiarity that was Wizarding Britain. The more he remembered, the more the ache grew. _Teddy. Ron. Hermione. When was the last time he told them he loved them - not offhandedly or casually, but meaning it with the entirety of his being?_ The ache slowly rebranded itself into an intense desire - Harry suddenly swore, silently, that he wouldn't die in this world. The madness of this place wouldn't be his final resting place. Determination reignited, he sat up a little straighter.

Once the ship passed through the giant gate embedded in the wall, the din of the ship's masses of passengers lowered to a lugubrious buzz, sombre and quiet, occasionally interrupted with a loud sob or two. Harry heard snatches of conversation, and listened to them with renewed interest, trying to glean more information.

"... been a while, why aren't we stopping yet?"

"Wall Maria's been breached too, if we stop here, we'd die."

"Then where will we stop?"

"After Wall Rose, I suppose."

Harry dimly remembered hearing a resounding boom from a distance away in his moments of incontinence, but he hadn't been able to regard it properly - now, he turned to look where a giant crater interrupted the smoothness of the wall, and where Titans were slowly making their way through to breach the other side - the side he was now on. He supposed the people had named this wall Wall Maria, but it baffled him that there existed a Wall Rose, since it meant there was more than one wall. The sheer amount of time, materials, and manpower needed to build such massive, all-encompassing walls - even with the aid of magic, Harry wasn't sure it was entirely possible to accomplish. Yet _these_ people had done it. Somehow.

Harry turned to glance at the girl who had helped him earlier. Her face was still half buried in the scarf around her neck, and she was still hugging her knees, but her eyes slid to meet Harry's. They were a bright black, but looked old beyond her years.

On random impulse, Harry suddenly blurted out.

"Were you outside the town at the field a few hours ago?"

Only after the words left his mouth did he recall having woken up and noticed the two kids... One of whom also had a red scarf, hadn't she? As of then, they were too far away to discern any facial features, but the more Harry looked at the girl now - and the boy beside her - the more confident he was that it had been them.

The girl hesitated, then nodded imperceptibly, but she averted Harry's gaze. She turned away from him to face the other boy, murmuring something under her breath. The boy looked at her incredulously, his eyes suddenly opening wide. Harry was struck by how green and alive they were.

 _He has Lily's eyes._ The voices of so many that had uttered the same words - Dumbledore, Hagrid, Slughorn, even Ollivander - echoed through his mind, and Harry smiled wanly at the accompanying warmth.

His unmeaning smile caught the boy's attention. He peered at Harry with puffy eyes from crying earlier, and his lips quirked up for a flash of a moment, then disappeared.

The boy turned to what Harry now assumed was his sister - though they were definitely not biologically related - and started to protest as she murmured more indistinguishable words to him.

"You can't stop me! I have to avenge mother, don't you see?" The boy insisted, raising his volume. "I can't leave any Titan alive - you might, but I'll never rest until every single one of them is _gone_! And the only way I can do that - is to join the Survey Corps!"

With that, the girl seemed to give up. She said, clearly, after a pause, "Then I'll follow you."

The boy looked visibly annoyed at this, but he relented and didn't protest further.

When the ship finally drew to a shuddering stop, the passengers were herded off the ship, Harry along with them. After an hour's walk, they were crammed into a gated compound edged by warehouses, with hundreds of other refugees that had arrived on the ships from Shiganshina. The initial smell of stale sweat and blood was overwhelming. Harry squeezed through the mass of people and found himself a corner to sit in the courtyard.

He was aware that he might have to spend an inordinate amount of time before he hit upon a solution to get out and back ( _if any at all_ \- but he refused to acknowledge the possibility of there not being a solution), and he needed to be patient, although, of course, patience was never one of his best suits.

Before long, the refugees were shifted to a landfill and put to work on a farm. Harry followed along, keeping to himself.

While he tilled the barren soil, his mind set to work, trying to grow his own seeds of escape. This world could never be compared to the Wizarding World - it was devoid of magic, in fact, the only magical thing here was Harry himself. One of the nights, he tried making a portkey, but it didn't work. He gripped the metal plate until it dented, but he still remained, feet even more firmly planted to the accursed ground than before.

He toyed with other various ideas and plans - he could try leaving the walls and wandering till he found himself back at some form of modern Muggle civilisation, at which he could attempt to take a dubious Muggle aeroplane back to Britain. Of course, this was only assuming he was still in the same world… Which he highly doubted. The threat of Titans too, made him dismiss this idea.

Or he could find help. Harry was sure some governmental facet had developed top-secret technology that could be of use - but then again, he was confident he would only be seen as a raving lunatic. Even if he casted a spell as demonstration, nobody would believe it to be real, and he would probably just be fobbed off to be one of those Muggle illusionists. For all he knew, he could be killed if he was too careless.

Harry spent a few months exhausting all possible options in his head. He could feel himself weakening due to lack of food, but at least he was better off than some others - he had been put on light duty to let his ankle heal. He did know some rudimentary healing spells, but after remembering how Lockhart accidentally dissolved all the bones in his arm, he refrained.

Fights over food broke out more frequently. Harry witnessed two fully matured men grapple over a single potato, only to watch it fall into a muddy pool. A wizened woman slapped a child for taking an extra slice of bread. Harry found the child later out of pity and gave him one of his slices - the child snatched it and ran away.

Time passed indiscriminately, slipping from beneath Harry's fingers as he plotted and toiled and dismissed plan after plan-

And then came the day when he was bundled off with three-quarters of the refugees to leave the camp.

A soldier had stopped them in the midst of their work. Over the months, Harry had learnt the symbol on his back and arms meant he was from the Garrison, which also meant he was supposed to protect and maintain order within the Walls - which seemed as true as one of Professor Trelawney's predictions of Harry's numerous deaths.

"The government has come up with a plan to retake Wall Maria! All two hundred and fifty thousand of you will be needed to reclaim the land that belongs to us - every single refugee, save for the children, will be fundamental in this effort! Leave your material possessions behind. We leave tomorrow!"

As Harry trudged at the edge of the group, an ominous feeling crept into his gut. He felt like he was in a death procession. He cast a look over his shoulder - grim, worn faces stretched on as far as he could see. Here and there a few soldiers riding on horses rose above the parade - they were from the Survey Corps - Harry now knew the symbol they donned was the famed (and in his opinion, ironic) Wings of Freedom.

He really didn't want to go out and die. Even with so many of them, he wasn't sure they could even take down ten Titans - they were hardly armed, for Merlin's sake! The soldiers had dumped pitchforks and spades and the occasional cleaver or dagger upon them, but those could hardly be effective against thick, rubbery skin, huge masses of stubborn flesh and the unwavering thirst for human blood.

A human buffet, Harry realized. That's what they were.

With every foreboding step, the clammy anxiety and hatred for the twisted mindlessness of the Titans crept up even further into his mind.

-And then they were there. As much as they had dragged their feet, death's door still awaited them, and now welcomed them with its cold embrace. The procession had barely halted before the massive gate started to open. The men beside Harry raised their pitchforks warily and angrily, eyes burning with indignant passion, yet tinged with fear.

Harry never considered himself a firm believer of heaven and hell. As far as he was concerned, the afterlife was real... But heaven and hell were merely constructions of the human imagination to escape the fear of eternal purgatory.

But after the gate opened, he had converted his belief. He was in a living hell - there was no other possible superordinate to describe the amount of chaos, pain, destruction and sheer humiliation he witnessed.

Once they were fully through the gate, the Titans swarmed upon them like moths to a flame, and started grabbing people by the handfuls, shoving them into their cavernous mouths without abandon. The rest of the people promptly scattered, screaming and yelling, trying to engage the Titans without success. The soldiers with their elaborate straps and sophisticated gear maneuvering through the air with thin cables and wielding sharp swords - they, too, were hardly much more successful.

A Titan was coming for him. It was at least ten meters tall, and had bulbous black eyes that were fixated on Harry - who was just yet another tasty morsel. Harry swore at himself for letting his guard down, and sprinted. The Titan didn't seem to give up, however, and started lumbering towards Harry, closing the distance between them in massive, long strides. As Harry ran, he fumbled for his wand.

It didn't take long before the Titan's moving shadow loomed over him and blocked out his own shadow. His bones vibrated with every thundering step the Titan took. He was too close, he couldn't escape now. He turned in futile hope of engaging the Titan, but it was already reaching for him-

-Suddenly, the Titan froze in its tracks, a stricken look on its face. Harry stared at it in confusion for a few seconds, before it crumpled to the ground in a humongous, thundering crash. He heard the mechanical sound of retracting spools and winding wire before he noticed a soldier from the Survey Corps leap nimbly from the side of a building and land in front of Harry.

The soldier couldn't have been much older than Harry, yet his eyes and face spoke of a wearisome burden years beyond his age. His auburn hair was matted with sweat, and his uniform soiled with dirt. His swords were smoking. Harry realized they were stained with Titan blood, and he cast a look at the unmoving Titan, its body vigorously steaming.

 _It...it was dead. How?_

"Yes, don't worry, it's dead and gone." The soldier said, following his perplexed gaze. Then he sighed, and sheathed his swords, muttering to himself. "I knew this entire operation was a bad idea. Everyone just sent out to die, it's a stupid waste of life-"

"How did you kill it?" Harry interrupted eagerly, hope flaring up now that the Titans didn't seem all that invulnerable after all. Maybe he wouldn't die today. Maybe he had a chance to escape this hellhole. He gripped his wand a little tighter.

The soldier opened his mouth to answer, but stopped himself as he noticed something behind Harry, before quickly gasping, "Watch out - Titan!" At the same time, Harry spotted a pot bellied Titan at the other end of the street.

With an awful feeling, he realised they were cornered. Titans blocked their only two exits. Harry raised his wand.

"Don't be silly, that useless stick won't do anything against the Titans." The soldier hissed. Harry ignored him.

Then Harry had the most stomach-turning feeling of being swept off his feet - and then he was airborne, wind whipping at his hair and nearly yanking off his glasses. The soldier had grabbed him around the midriff and launched off, and they were now flitting over tiled roofs with considerable speed.

"Hang tight, don't move about unnecessarily!" The soldier shouted. Harry heard him murmur under his breath, "...Can't have any more stupid deaths in this place..."

Harry obliged. Being airborne on a broom was one thing… being held by one arm and yanked about was another.

"Titan!" Harry yelled. They were heading straight for it - the lumbering tower of meat and hunger. The soldier launched his cables and anchored them in the shoulders of the Titan. Harry barely had time to register shock as they hurtled towards the Titan, before the soldier drew his sword. _He's going to kill it!_

They landed on the Titan's massive shoulders, and the soldier released Harry. He raised his sword to slice at the Titan's neck, but just as quickly, as if by reflex, Harry felt the Titan's shoulder move under his feet, and a huge long blur whipped up and grabbed the soldier mid-swing.

Harry watched in abject horror as the man screamed and struggled in the fist of the Titan. He couldn't just stand there - he had to do something-

" _Avada Kedavra!_ "

The Unforgivable curse dissipated against the Titan's scalp with nary a green spark. _It didn't work?_

Frantically, he changed tack.

" _Reducto!_ " This time, he aimed at the tightening fist.

The soldier burst from within the confines of the smoking fingers, bloodied from where his sword had cut into his own body. He launched himself back towards Harry. _What was he trying to do?_ "Run, you fool!" Harry yelled.

"Kill it! Now!" The soldier screamed, blood streaming from the open wounds on his body. "The nape of the neck-"

The Titan swung its undamaged arm around and smashed the soldier out of the air, then reached for Harry.

Without a second thought, Harry steadied himself and slashed at the Titan's nape.

" _Sectumsempra!_ "

A deep gash opened itself along the Titan's nape, exposing red, bloody flesh beneath. The Titan went limp, then started to fall forward.

Still on its shoulder, Harry braced himself for the impact.

It did come, but not from the direction he was expecting. A force slammed against the side of his chest, and wrapped around him. It was the soldier. There was a deathly pale, pained look on his face.

The soldier grabbed onto Harry and flitted between several buildings, before he seemed to succumb, and they crumpled into a small alcove between two buildings. The soldier's body rolled to a stop, and didn't move. Panting, Harry dragged himself up to him, and rolled him over.

He gasped. Dark red blood streamed from the wounds on his body - it was irreparable damage. A cut on his shin was so deep, Harry could've sworn he saw a flash of white bone as he shifted the man. Logically, he shouldn't even have been able to move, let alone carry Harry for such a distance.

The soldier took several shallow breaths, and mouthed something unintelligible. Harry leaned in.

"W...What - the _hell_ did you do - back there?" He whispered hoarsely, gripping Harry by his shirt with unnatural strength. His eyes burned with a fierce light.

"I... " Harry had no cohesive reply. "L-listen, you're wounded, I need to get you to a hospital or something-"

"No, you-" The man suddenly convulsed. More blood streamed out of his wounds, staining the stone pavement red. He lolled his head to the side and spit out a mouthful of red.

As if in a dream, he turned back to face Harry. He was drifting away. "You… aren't from this place." It wasn't so much of a question than it was a statement. Harry nodded slowly.

The man's face held a shadow of a vague smile. He convulsed again then, and his face contorted into a mask of torture as he threw up more blood, and then went eerily still.

Harry closed his blank eyes, and knelt there by the dead man, grieving silently.

He had been kneeling for nary a minute of two, before Harry heard a familiar mechanical sound from behind him, and felt a faint gust of wind. Before he could turn, an imposing metal blade rested itself on Harry's shoulder.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Harry said, stiffly facing forward. His hand crept towards his wand as surreptitiously as possible.

"Don't move, or you're dead." A cold, male voice replied. The flat of the blade pressed even harder into Harry's shoulder. "And I should be the one asking that: Who are _you_ , and what did you do to that Titan?"


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey, hey, calm down." Harry tried to summon as soothing and harmless a voice he could while staying completely still.

"Who are you?" The voice repeated menacingly, and Harry winced as the man adjusted the blade until it dug into the crook of his neck.

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter." After a thought, he added on, "-One of the refugees."

There was a silence.

"This isn't a good time to be lying."

"I'm not! Really!"

"No refugee can kill a Titan." The voice stated flatly. Harry bristled. Who did this guy think he was, disregarding the lives of so many in one casual, sweeping statement?

"I- I didn't do it on my own. This soldier helped me." Harry inclined his jaw towards the body, taking special care to avoid slicing his neck on the edge of the blade.

"What happened to him?"

"He got...trapped by the Titan, and then hit by it again."

"His uniform is tattered. A little burnt. Stop lying. And I saw - you had a weapon."

Harry looked at the body. _Burnt?_ It must have been the curse. The edges of the man's torn uniform were singed - the curse must have hit part of him by accident.

"Now, are you going to tell me the truth, or am I going to have to lop off your shitty head?"

Harry remained silent, but his hand had found his wand, and he was going to turn around and Stupefy-

The same whirring sound of retracting cables broke the silence, and Harry paused, looking up at the new arrival. It was a female soldier, an exuberant grin on her face. She sported a ridiculous pair of glasses - Harry knew his own glasses weren't all that great, but her pair just reminded him of one of those strange muggle accessories - it had a thick, rectangular frame that belonged more to goggles rather than spectacles. " _Hey!_ "

The man behind Harry made a _tch_ sound. Harry dared to have hope - if the man was distracted by the woman, Stupefying both of them would be an easy task.

"You're not supposed to be here. Erwin said only a few soldiers." The man sounded annoyed, but his tone was still flat, every word a deadpan.

The woman walked nearer, still grinning. She cast a look at the dead soldier in front of Harry, and her smile faded for a few seconds. Then she considered Harry, and looked up at the man behind him, and her smile returned. "Yes, but I couldn't resist. There were _so many_. You can't believe how tempting it was."

Harry prepared himself, fingers tightening around his wand, legs tensing, words on the edge of his lips.

"And _why_ are you threatening this poor kid, Levi? All he's got is a stick to protect himself with." The focus turned to Harry, and he grimaced. Disappointment washed over him - he couldn't act now.

The man behind him - Levi, was it? - said, "He killed a Titan, probably one of our soldiers too. I'd hardly call him a 'poor kid'. I was going to get answers - before you crashed in and proceeded to shove your shit-eating grin up all our asses."

The woman looked at Harry in surprise. "A Titan? On your own?" Harry kept his mouth pressed into a grim line.

She suddenly laughed. Or cackled, really. She clapped her hands in glee. "That's _wonderful_! Levi, we can't kill him! He could be an _asset_. Can you imagine, if he killed a Titan god knows how on his own - what could he _do_ with a 3dmg of his own?"

Levi's tone turned affronted. His sword stayed resolutely on Harry's shoulder. "If with every Titan he takes down, he kills another of our soldiers, then taking him back would be the crappiest idea that's ever come out of your mouth. Which is saying something."

Harry had to admit: This woman had some thick skin. She brushed off the insult like he'd just complimented her. "Aw, come on. You could always whip him into complete submission - I'm sure he'd get the importance of preserving lives." She bent over and regarded Harry from a totally respectable distance of about three inches away. Startled, Harry drew his face back and avoided her gaze. This woman seemed half insane. Then - "He looks like he could do with some cleaning up." She announced. Harry looked up at her. A crafty glint flashed in her eyes.

A moment of hesitation.

"True." The sword was lifted off Harry's shoulder.

Harry immediately rolled to the side. " _Stupef-_ " Before he could completely cast the spell, a massive impact was dealt to his chest, causing all the air to gush out of him and leaving him coughing and gasping, sprawled across the ground. _What the hell was that?_

Levi had kicked him from behind - at warp speed, apparently. Harry hadn't even seen him coming. His wand was yanked out of his grasp, and he was effortlessly hauled to his feet.

As he set eyes on Levi, only one thing really registered during the first few seconds.

Levi was short.

For the first time in ages, Harry had finally met another man who was shorter than himself. Not by much, but still shorter, nevertheless.

He barely had time to rejoice at this, before he made eye contact with the most intimidating, steely pair of eyes ever. Levi had a death glare that could probably scare a Titan off course.

"If you try that again, I'll change my mind and you'll find yourself shitting blood." He deftly twisted Harry's arm around and pinned it against his back, rendering him largely immobile.

Thoroughly indignant, Harry struggled - but Levi's grip was unmovable.

"Give me my wand back." Harry winced inwards, imagining how his words would be construed. That was a bad decision. If anything, it probably confirmed his insanity in these people's eyes. He'd be killed, tossed in a loony bin, sacrificed to some pagan God of war.

" _Wand?_ " The lady piped up in an incredulous voice. _Oh no._

"Oh how absolutely - intriguing! Does that mean there's some sort of power in that stick?" She cackled again, then declared, "Levi, I'm so glad you found him for me! How fun!"

 _What?_

Then Harry realised that insanity and weirdness would just bounce off this woman, because she herself was clearly not all there. But he took his chances at survival - besides, in the first place, it had been in one of his plans to somehow breach the government and get his hands on their secret technology that would get him back. Back to home.

It'd been far, far too long - a pang of nostalgia and empty pain gnawed at his stomach as he wondered if everything was okay back home, if anyone had tried to find him, if time even passed the same way there because if it did, his son would have already been born, and he would have abandoned Ginny to be an estranged single mother.

He was yanked out of the torturous ramblings of his mind by Levi pushing him from behind, making him stumble forward. The woman picked up the body of the soldier and started walking, not even bothering that the soldier's blood was staining her uniform.

They were on the move - they kept to streets that the Titans couldn't fit through or see them in. The route seemed pre-planned, for the soldiers turned automatically and confidently at every juncture or split in the paths. The journey was eerily quiet, save for the woman's occasional humming and lighthearted remarks, the light taps of their footsteps against the cobblestone, and the distant _thump_ s of the Titan's massive feet.

With a dead feeling, Harry said, "They're all gone, aren't they?"

The woman gave a noncommittal hum and continued walking jauntily. "Mm... Who?"

"The refugees. They're all eaten. All dead."

"Well, yes, I suppose."

Her apathy angered Harry, and he felt himself tense against Levi's grip. He was thoroughly riled up, thinking about all the innocent people that were now stewing in the bellies of Titans. He burst out, "Why don't you care at all? They were people - like you and I! And there were so many of them! Why were they even sent here in the first place - Titan _fodder_?-"

Levi kneed him from behind, and Harry buckled, cutting off his loud rant mid-sentence. Before he hit the ground, there was a flash, and he barely managed to raise his arms to brace himself before he was dealt another kick to the face that sent him reeling.

"You're just a whiny brat with shit for brains. If you shout loud enough, I'm sure all the Titans will come here, sit down and applaud your little speech. Shut up."

Aggravated, Harry stood up shakily, and touched his raw face gingerly. His fingers came away stained red, and he tasted blood. He was ready to hit Levi back, _do_ something. " _You-_ " He started to shout, but before he could fully steady himself, another punch smashed into his temple, and his vision exploded into sparks of colour and pain.

Harry vaguely registered the impact of crumbling against the ground, before his senses numbed completely and a curtain of darkness fell across his vision.

He opened his eyes to the shadowed ceiling of his home.

 _It… It was a dream?_

He turned his face to the side. Ginny was sleeping soundly, a peaceful hint of a smile on her lips. He raised a palm and touched her cheek lightly, disbelievingly. Sleepily, she opened her eyes and smiled at Harry. "What's wrong, Harry? Go back to sleep."

"I… I had a crazy dream." Harry muttered, cradling Ginny's face gently, even a little bit fearfully, as if she would disappear under his touch.

Ginny kissed him on the forehead, and yawned. Harry closed his eyes, relaxing under her touch. _Home._

When he opened them again, Ginny was grinning widely at him. He chuckled. "What?" His eyes traced the familiar angles and bright eyes that he'd missed for so long in the hellish dream-world.

"Was it a dream where you abandoned us, Harry?"

A chill ran down his spine. Harry stared at her, speechless.

Ginny sat up, throwing the covers away. Under her nightgown, there was no telltale bump. "Did you throw us away, Harry? Leave us forever?" Her smile vanished.

Harry sat up too, bewildered. Explanations tried to force their way out his mouth, but they jumbled on his tongue. "N-No… What?-Ginny, I- I didn't-"

"Don't you love us, Harry? _Don't_ _you?_ " Her voice began to rise in volume. The air around her buzzed with a mysterious, malicious energy, and made the hairs on Harry's nape stand on end. " _Harry Potter, answer me!_ " She shrieked.

A high-pitched wail rent the air - but it didn't come from Ginny.

They both automatically turned their heads towards the source of the cry. There was a crib against the wall, and a tiny, moving bundle lay within. A lump formed in Harry's throat. _No - No! It can't be._

" _See what you've done, Harry?_ " Ginny screamed, drowning out the baby's cries. " _You left us! You don't love us anymore!_ "

Harry woke up with Ginny's name on his lips. He was sitting on an uncomfortably hard wood chair, and his arms and legs were tightly bound with rope to it. Eyes swimming a little and a dull ache still hammering at his skull, he struggled against the binds, to no avail.

His face hurt, and as he licked his lips, there was a stinging pain and an accompanying taste of blood.

"Good, you're awake." A deep, male voice said.

Harry stopped struggling and looked up. A long desk with a lamp at one end and neat piles of paperwork at the other separated him from a blond man, whose gaze bored into his face. Harry found himself looking at the man's thick, intense eyebrows to avoid looking at his even more intense, searching gaze.

"Where am I?" Harry asked guardedly.

"You're in the headquarters of the Survey Corps."

"And... Why?"

The man's eyes pierced at Harry - they were a bright blue.

"Lance Corporal Levi and Squad Leader Hange brought you here." The man paused, an inscrutable expression on his face.

Then the memories came rushing back all at once - the running, the Titan, the soldier, being knocked out. Stunned, he stared downwards, gaze unconsciously following the minute twisting and curling grain of the wood desk. "Let me out."

"I'm afraid not." Dismissed. Just like that. "Hange tells me you killed a Titan on your own. Did you?"

Harry glared at him, and stayed resolutely, stubbornly silent. Was it a thing amongst the soldiers to be completely arrogant pricks? And where was his wand? Who was this guy anyway?

His wand... Harry felt a tinge of uncertainty. If it was destroyed or thrown away, he didn't know what he would do.

It would mean a definite loss of his magical identity, a removal of another tangible link to the wizarding world. And it spelled a certain condemnation to this dark world. Without a medium for his magic, there was a near-zero possibility he could get out of this place on his own.

Perhaps he should cooperate, then. To a certain degree.

The man was most surely about to comment on his lack of reply, but Harry cut in and nodded, smoothing out his face into a stoic expression. "Yes. But I had help."

The man regarded him indifferently, but Harry could feel a vague underlying curiosity in his eyes.

"I'm sure you're highly confused about your current… predicament." The man said. "Which is why I believe we should start with introductions, to clear things up." He inclined his head expectantly at Harry, indicating him to start first.

Warily, Harry said his name. "Harry Potter."

There was a pregnant silence, as the man waited for him to elaborate.

"I'm from the… Shiganshina District. Lived there all eighteen years of my life." Harry figured that making himself a couple of years younger would put him under a more forgiving light. And, though he hated to admit, he looked the part, anyway. "We were moved to the refugee camp when the Titans attacked, and we stayed there for a year, before orders were sent for us to retake Wall Maria." _And sacrifice ourselves for nothing!_ He silently added on, bristling with anger. He clenched his jaw tightly to stop the accusatory words from escaping.

The man leaned backwards against his chair.

"And I am Erwin Smith of the Survey Corps." He finally said. "That being said, I don't believe your story. We operate on the truth here, Harry, and it would serve us both better to reinforce that."

Harry scoffed. "Right. Tell that to the thousands of innocent refugees the Survey Corps sent on a suicide mission - _for no reason_!"

"It wasn't a pointless endeavor. The camps were overflowing, and the rations were running out - it was a necessary evil. With those thousands of people gone, there's now enough food to sustain the human population." Erwin explained. He spoke as if he were analysing a military strategy, as if the people were merely pawns. It made perfect, logical sense, but the moral side of Harry still vehemently protested.

"That doesn't justify killing them. You lied to them - you took away their choice!" Harry insisted, straining against his binds. If only he had his wand.

"Their honorable sacrifice ensured the survival of hundreds of thousands of others.' Erwin stated firmly. "And you can help make their deaths mean something, if you tell me the truth about yourself. _Where do you come from?_ "

Harry hesitated. He couldn't tell if he could trust this man or not. At this point, he'd been so used to keeping his history a secret that it went against all the warning alarms for self-preservation that rang in his brain. He was going to seem like a complete lunatic freak. But was there a better option? If it could help him, it was worth a try...

"It's a long, far-fetched story." He warned. "And I'm not insane." He tacked on as an afterthought.

Erwin nodded his head solemnly, but his steely blue eyes seemed to gleam even brighter. "We operate on the truth," He affirmed.

And so Harry started the story, words tumbling out in awkward clauses and unfinished sentences. "I… I'm not from around here. As - as in, not from this _world_ , even. It sounds crazy, but I've spent more than twenty years in a different Earth, one without Titans. I came here completely by accident."

Erwin barely looked disbelieving. He said nothing, but his face of interest merely grew in intensity, completely intent on his every word.

As he spoke, his confidence grew, and he told of Hogwarts and magic, Dumbledore and his parents, of Voldemort and the Wizarding War. Occasionally, he stopped as memories and nostalgia inundated him, but Erwin never questioned his silence, and waited for him to regain his composure. Then, Harry explained about Tom Riddle's lair and how he woke up in Shiganshina District, and traced his steps since, from the refugee camp to slaying the Titan with the soldier. It felt unbelievably freeing to speak his mind after months of unbearable silence and secrecy.

"...And here I am." Harry ended, throat dry and lips cracked from the long speech and the dried blood from earlier. Erwin had barely moved from his position. His expression betrayed no emotion, but Harry could sense he was deep in thought.

His story had taken nearly an hour to recite, even while skimming over the many things he deemed unimportant, but as exhausting as it was, he felt more alive than he'd been since his arrival to this world.

Now, he could only hope.

"Fair enough." Erwin finally said. "I believe your story, as fantastical as you claim it to be."

"Well, that's good." Harry said awkwardly.

"However, I cannot promise that the Survey Corps will be able to help you return to your world. We do not have the benefit of possessing the "magic" you speak of." Erwin paused for a moment. "I have a preposition. Will you hear it?"

Hearing no objection from Harry, Erwin continued. "I can grant you certain freedom, and make sure that you get your, ah, wand back. I can even promise to have our most outstanding scientists work tirelessly on your case, though with no guarantee of success."

It was very tempting, and Erwin's terms were highly convincing and persuasive. Harry nearly agreed immediately once he heard he would be returned his wand, but he made himself stop. "And what will I have to do in return?"

Erwin leant forward and regarded Harry seriously. "Will you join the Survey Corps?"


End file.
